Democrats end House sit-in protest over gun control

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Washington (CNN)Democrats decided to end their day-long sit-in protest on the House floor over gun control Thursday.

Rep. John Lewis, who launched the sit-in Wednesday morning that eventually drew 170 lawmakers, lit up social media, and infuriated House Republicans -- but spurred no legislative action -- said the fight was not over.

"We must come back here on July 5th [when Congress returns to session] more determined than ever before," Lewis said.

"We are going to win," he told supporters on the Capitol steps after the sit-in was halted. "The fight is not over. This is just one step of when we come back here on July the 5th we're going to continue to push, to pull, to stand up, and if necessary, to sit down. So don't give up, don't give in. Keep the faith, and keep your eyes on the prize."

He also tweeted, "We got in trouble. We got in the way. Good trouble. Necessary Trouble. By sitting-in, we were really standing up."

Many of the earliest sit-ins were labor strikes. In December 1936, workers at a General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, staged a "sit-down" strike seeking union representation.

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Photos:Famous sit-ins

The method saw renewed use in the civil-rights movement. A pivotal moment came in 1960, when African-American college students staged a sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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Photos:Famous sit-ins

Sit-ins like the one in Greensboro spread across the South. Here, women protest segregation in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1960.

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In 1965, University of Michigan professors such as Eric Wolf, pictured, staged a "teach-in" to protest the Vietnam War.

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Photos:Famous sit-ins

In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono took the concept of a sit-in a step further, staging a "bed-in" in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and another in Montreal to protest the Vietnam War.

In 1977, disability rights protesters occupied the San Francisco offices of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, demanding the federal government implement a law protecting the rights of the disabled.

In September 2011, participants in the Occupy Wall Street protest met in a park in New York. About 1,000 demonstrators gathered to protest the U.S. capitalist system.

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In April of this year, hundreds of "Democracy Spring" protesters were arrested during a Capitol Hill sit-in.

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Lawmakers said that during the July 4th break, they would take the issue to their districts.

"We are going back to our congressional districts -- we are going to engage our constituents on this subject, and we will not allow this body feel as comfortable as in the past," Rep. Jim Clyburn said. "On July 5, we will return, and at that time we will be operating on a new sense of a purpose."

Republicans had earlier tried to shut down the sit-in, but the Democrats' protest over the lack of action on gun control lasted for more than 24 hours. House Democrats were looking for votes to expand background checks and ban gun sales to those on the no-fly watch list.

In the middle of the night, the House GOP had sought to end the extraordinary day of drama by swiftly adjourning for a recess that will last through July 5.

The Republican move was an effort to terminate a protest that began Wednesday morning in reaction to the massacre in Orlando when Democrats took over the House floor and tried to force votes on gun control. But throughout the morning Thursday, 10-20 Democrats, including House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi for much of the time, remained on the floor.

At one point, a police officer told the Democrats that they would be conducting a daily security sweep. "I'd ask that you clear the floor while that happens," the officer said.

Pelosi responded: "That's not going to happen" and the security check then took place involving five agents and a dog as the House Democratic leader continued speaking, undeterred.

Photos:House sit-in: Democrats protest lack of gun control

Rep. John Lewis, second from right, sits with other Democrats on the House floor as they try to force a vote on gun control on Wednesday, June 22. Lewis posted the above photo to his Facebook account saying, "We have a mission, a mandate, and a moral obligation to speak up and speak out until the House votes to address gun violence. We have turned deaf ears to the blood of the innocent and the concern of our nation. We will use nonviolence to fight gun violence and inaction."

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Photos:House sit-in: Democrats protest lack of gun control

Rep. John Yarmuth posted this image of Lewis on his Twitter account. The Democrats staged the sit-in to protest the lack of congressional action on gun control after the June 12 mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub. Republicans sought to end the sit-in by adjourning for a recess. They criticized the Democratic effort as a publicity stunt.

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Photos:House sit-in: Democrats protest lack of gun control

Lewis, a veteran of civil rights battles of the '60s, makes his way back to the Capitol after speaking to supporters on June 22.

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Supporters of House Democrats shout encouragement outside the Capitol on June 22.

Washington resident Nardyne Jefferies, holding a photo of her daughter, Brishell, 16, who died in gun violence, meets with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi after a June 22 news conference on gun legislation on Capitol Hill.

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Reps. Peter DeFazio, left, Katherine Clark and John Lewis continue the sit-in in a photo provided by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici.

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Pelosi said the sit-in would continue "until hell freezes over."

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday accused the Democrats of throwing the House into "chaos" and threatening democracy. He said Republicans were looking at all options to stop the sit-in, if the Democrats continued it.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, also criticized the protest and said it was a setback to her efforts to build bipartisan support for her legislation that would ban gun sales to people on a list of possible terrorists.

"It is not helpful to have had the sit-in on the House side because that made it partisan, and I've worked very hard to keep this bipartisan, so that setback our efforts somewhat," she said of her bill, which won support from a majority of senators Thursday but fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance.

Although Republicans leaders had shut off House cameras, Democrats continued Thursday morning to livestream their activities on the floor. Rep. Mark Takano plugged his phone into an external power source, set it on top of a chair facing the podium, and was streaming on his Facebook page even though he'd left the chamber to appear on CNN's "New Day."

The sit-in became a social media happening. Tweets sent by Reps. Scott Peters and Eric Swalwell with Periscopes were viewed over 1 million times and the hashtags #NoBillNoBreak and #HoldTheFloor were tweeted over 1.4 million times, according to Twitter.

Shortly after 8:00 a.m. Florida Rep. Ted Deutch gave an impassioned speech on the floor.

"I am tired, I am cold, and I am hungry. Let me remind everyone watching how privileged I am to be tired, cold, and hungry," he said. "These are feelings that I am privileged to have because so many will never feel that again," referring to victims of gun violence.

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Overall, more than 170 Democrats took part in the sit in over the 24 hours, lawmakers said.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said at 3:36 a.m., "The Republicans have left in the dead of night with business unfinished."

Republicans said earlier that they wouldn't give Democrats the gun control votes they wanted.

"Democrats can continue to talk, but the reality is that they have no end-game strategy," Ryan's spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement. "The Senate has already defeated the measure they're calling for. The House is focused on eliminating terrorists, not constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And no stunts on the floor will change that."

The tension exploded onto the floor just after 10 p.m. Wednesday when Ryan gaveled the chamber into order to hold a procedural vote on an unrelated matter. A dramatic scene unfolded as throngs of Democrats -- some holding signs with the names of victims of gun violence -- remained in the House well, chanting "no bill, no break" and "shame shame shame." They also sang the protest anthem "We Shall Overcome."

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Such displays would normally be prohibited, but Ryan, sensitive to the attention being paid to the sit-in, declined to enforce the traditional order in the House.

The political world had started Wednesday focused on insults flying between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

But the sit-in drew attention to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have been unable to act on gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting. And Lewis, 76, one of the most prominent of the 1960s-era civil rights leaders still alive, said it reminded him of his early days protesting to end segregation.

"We're going to continue to sit in and sit down," he said Wednesday night.

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Photos:Worst mass shootings in the United States

Parents wait for news after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday, February 14. At least 17 people were killed at the school, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. The suspect, 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz, is in custody, the sheriff said. The sheriff said he was expelled for unspecified disciplinary reasons.

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Investigators at the scene of a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, November 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside the small community church, killing at least 25 people and an unborn child. The gunman, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, was found dead in his vehicle. He was shot in the leg and torso by an armed citizen, and he had a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, authorities said.

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A couple huddles after shots rang out at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday, October 1, 2017. At least 58 people were killed and almost 500 were injured when a gunman opened fire on the crowd. Police said the gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, fired from the Mandalay Bay hotel, several hundred feet southwest of the concert grounds. He was found dead in his hotel room, and authorities believe he killed himself and that he acted alone. It is the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

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Police direct family members away from the scene of a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016. Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire inside the club, killing at least 49 people and injuring more than 50. Police fatally shot Mateen during an operation to free hostages that officials say he was holding at the club.

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In December 2015, two shooters killed 14 people and injured 21 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, where employees with the county health department were attending a holiday event. The shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, were later killed in a shootout with authorities. The pair were found to be radicalized extremists who planned the shootings as a terror attack, investigators said.

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Police search students outside Umpqua Community College after a deadly shooting at the school in Roseburg, Oregon, in October 2015. Nine people were killed and at least nine were injured, police said. The gunman, Chris Harper-Mercer, committed suicide after exchanging gunfire with officers, a sheriff said.

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A man kneels across the street from the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, following a shooting in June 2015. Police say the suspect, Dylann Roof, opened fire inside the church, killing nine people. According to police, Roof confessed and told investigators he wanted to start a race war. He was eventually convicted of murder and hate crimes, and a jury recommended the death penalty.

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Police officers walk on a rooftop at the Washington Navy Yard after a shooting rampage in the nation's capital in September 2013. At least 12 people and suspect Aaron Alexis were killed, according to authorities.

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Connecticut State Police evacuate Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Adam Lanza opened fire in the school, killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police said he also shot and killed his mother in her Newtown home.

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James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a July 2012 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Twelve people were killed and dozens were wounded when Holmes opened fire during the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises." He was sentenced to 12 life terms plus thousands of years in prison.

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A military jury convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan of 13 counts of premeditated murder for a November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirteen people died and 32 were injured.

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Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, before turning the gun on himself in April 2009, police said. Four other people were injured at the immigration center shooting. Wong had been taking English classes at the center.

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Pallbearers carry a casket of one of Michael McLendon's 10 victims. McLendon shot and killed his mother in her Kingston, Alabama, home, before shooting his aunt, uncle, grandparents and five more people. He shot and killed himself in Samson, Alabama, in March 2009.

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Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree on the school's campus in April 2007. Cho killed two people at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and, after chaining the doors closed, killed another 30 at Norris Hall, home to the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. He wounded an additional 17 people before killing himself.

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Mark Barton walked into two Atlanta trading firms and fired shots in July 1999, leaving nine dead and 13 wounded, police said. Hours later, police found Barton at a gas station in Acworth, Georgia, where he pulled a gun and killed himself. The day before, Barton had bludgeoned his wife and his two children in their Stockbridge, Georgia, apartment, police said.

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Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold brought guns and bombs to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999. The students gunned down 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves.

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In October 1991, George Hennard crashed his pickup through the plate-glass window of Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, before shooting 23 people and committing suicide.

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James Huberty shot and killed 21 people, including children, at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, in July 1984. A police sharpshooter killed Huberty an hour after the rampage began.

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Prison guard George Banks is led through the Luzerne County courthouse in 1985. Banks killed 13 people, including five of his children, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in September 1982. He was sentenced to death in 1993 and received a stay of execution in 2004. His death sentence was overturned in 2010.

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Officers in Austin, Texas, carry victims across the University of Texas campus after Charles Joseph Whitman opened fire from the school's tower, killing 16 people and wounding 30 in 1966. Police officers shot and killed Whitman, who had killed his mother and wife earlier in the day.

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Howard Unruh, a World War II veteran, shot and killed 13 of his neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, in 1949. Unruh barricaded himself in his house after the shooting. Police overpowered him the next day. He was ruled criminally insane and committed to a state mental institution.

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Ahead of the vote, dozens of Democratic House members gathered around Democratic Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer as he equated their sit-in with the civil rights protests led by figures like Lewis and Rep. Jim Clyburn five decades ago.

"We stand here saying Paul Ryan, help give us the right to vote on these two bills, make America safer!" Hoyer said.

As the two sides raced to the showdown in the House, staff brought in food, pillows and even sleeping bags. Lawmakers announced they had brought in battery packs to keep the livestream on Periscope going through the night.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Ryan dismissed the sit-in effort as a "publicity stunt." Behind closed doors, he promised Republicans they would vote on an unrelated veto override measure and Zika funding legislation, not gun control measures.

The sit-in follows the shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub earlier this month that killed 49 people -- the deadliest incident of gun violence in American history. The shooting renewed the debate over gun control legislation, which seems poised to go nowhere in Congress. The Senate blocked several gun measures Monday even as a CNN/ORC poll this week found that public support for changes such as tighter background checks hovers around 90%.

Several Republican congressmen criticized the sit-in as a political stunt.

"Calling this a sit-in is a disgrace to Woolworth's," Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina tweeted. "They sat-in for rights. Dems are 'sitting-in' to strip them away."

As the sit-in continued, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used the opportunity to fundraise, with Pelosi telling supporters, "I need 6,000 gifts in the door during tonight's sit-in. Will you pitch in $1?" Republicans slammed the Democrats for seeking to cash in.

The sit-in evoked memories of a protest by House Republicans in August 2008 to push for a vote on offshore drilling. When Pelosi, then the House speaker, adjourned for Congress' summer recess, a handful of House GOP members remained as the lights and microphones inside the chamber were turned off and House cameras, controlled by the speaker's office, were switched off.

Democrats rallied behind the latest sit-in. Some, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, joined the protest while others delivered snacks and sodas.

Lewis was also encouraged by President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton.

"Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most," Obama tweeted.

Clinton tweeted his praise, writing, "This is leadership" and linking to Lewis' tweet about the sit-in.

Lewis organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters after being inspired to join Martin Luther King Jr.'s crusade for equality and eventually led the mass march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday in 1965, one of the epochal events in American history. Lewis was beaten so badly by Alabama state troopers that they fractured his skull.

As Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz recounted reading the resignation letter from former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was wounded in a shooting in 2011, from the same House lectern four years ago, she began tearing up.

"No more Auroras, no more Orlandos!" she shouted, to a standing ovation. Pelosi, who led Hillary Clinton into a meeting with congressional Democrats just hours before the sit-in began, stood and applauded with the other Democratic congressmen and senators gathered in the chamber.

Later, as Wasserman Schultz got up to leave, Lewis hugged her.

As the sit-in gathered momentum, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, a prominent gun control advocate following the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012, walked over and joined. The lawmaker led a nearly 15-hour filibuster in the Senate last week asking lawmakers to vote on gun reform. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin also joined the group.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said the lawmakers participating in the sit-in were showing the kind of "frustration and even anger that people around the country have about the inability of the Republican-led Congress to take common sense steps that would protect the American people."

.@Clyburn is leading us in a prayer for gun victims. Honor to join all these pillars of the civil rights movement in peaceful protest